The Printed Edit  ·  N° 01

The Wild Atlantic Journey

A 7-day Ireland itinerary, west-leaning.

Deborah Nunez, Editor

This is the route we send friends when they call from the States. Four bases over seven days. No wasted nights. The Atlantic sits beside you for most of it.

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N° 01  ·  The Printed Edit
High contrast is off

“The version readers print and bring with them.”

What this edition covers

  • ·The four bases we book and the order to drive them
  • ·Hotels we'd actually stay in, with the rooms that matter
  • ·Three guided experiences worth the spend
  • ·A short Dublin opening and a slow Kerry close
  • ·What to skip, and why

Who this edition is for

First-time visitors who want one careful week, not a dozen towns.

Locations featured

Dublin · Wicklow Mountains · Connemara · Ring of Kerry · Kenmare

Route highlights

  1. 01Days 1, 2: Dublin on foot
  2. 02Day 3: Wicklow, then drive west
  3. 03Days 4, 5: Connemara
  4. 04Day 6: Ring of Kerry to Kenmare
  5. 05Day 7: Slow morning, fly home

Hotel highlights

  • ·The Shelbourne or The Merrion in Dublin
  • ·Ballynahinch Castle in Connemara, two nights
  • ·Sheen Falls Lodge or Park Hotel in Kenmare

Editor's letter

We wrote this edition because the same phone call kept arriving from the States. Nine towns in seven days, a rental car booked before the hotels, and a question that was never really a question: does this look right to you.

It did not. It almost never does. The first draft of an Irish week is always too wide, and the fix is always the same, which is to take a third of it out and give the time back to the places that are left.

What follows is the week we actually book. Four bases. Two nights minimum in each. The Atlantic on your left for most of it, and enough unclaimed hours that the trip has room to surprise you. Everything here has been driven, slept in and eaten by us, in this order, in this weather.

Read it once before you book, then bring it with you.

Deborah Nunez, Editor

Look inside

13 printed pages. Tap any page to read it full size.

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Contents

Volume I  ·  Seven days, four bases, one coast  ·  13 pages

I

p. 5

Before You Book Anything

The four decisions that shape the whole week, made in the right order.

Most Irish trips are lost in the first hour of planning, before a single hotel is chosen. The order matters more than the list. Decide the length of the week, then the number of bases, then the rooms, then the car. Reverse that order and you will spend the trip driving to keep a schedule you invented in February.

Seven days in Ireland is four bases. Not five, and not seven. Every hotel change costs you the back half of one afternoon and the front half of the next morning, which is to say it costs you a day of your life for the privilege of a different shower.

Open at page 5

II

p. 6

Dublin, Two Nights

A city opening that does not waste the jet lag.

Land, do not sleep, and walk. Dublin rewards the first-day fog better than anywhere else in the country because the whole centre is small enough to be crossed on foot and dense enough that you keep arriving somewhere before you tire.

Georgian squares in the morning while the light is flat. The Long Room if you have pre-booked, and only then. A long lunch, a short lie down, and dinner somewhere that does not need you to dress up on the first night.

Open at page 6

III

p. 7

West Through Wicklow

The drive that turns a city break into a trip.

Leave Dublin late morning, not early. The Military Road out through the Sally Gap is the first moment the country stops performing and simply appears, and it does that best when the coach traffic has already gone through.

Glendalough for an hour, not three. Then the long westward run, which is the only genuinely long drive in this week and is worth taking in one clean push.

Open at page 7

IV

p. 8

Connemara, Two Nights

Where the week finds its pace.

Connemara is the argument for two nights made visible. The first evening you look at it. The second morning you are in it. Nothing about that transfer happens on a single night.

The Sky Road out of Clifden at the end of the day, the bog roads in whatever weather arrives, and one long dinner that runs past the point where you meant to leave.

Open at page 8

V

p. 9

Kerry, The Close

The Ring, driven the wrong way, and Kenmare as a base.

Base in Kenmare, not Killarney. Drive the Ring anticlockwise so the coaches are coming at you rather than sitting in front of you, and start before nine so the first two hours belong to nobody else.

The last full day should have nothing in it. That is not laziness, it is design. The best day of an Irish trip is rarely the one that was scheduled.

Open at page 9

VI

p. 10

What We Left Out

The exclusions, and the reasoning behind each one.

A guide is only as useful as the things it refuses to include. Blarney is out. The Cliffs at midday are out. A Galway night wedged between two drives is out, because it costs more than it returns in a week this length.

None of these are bad places. They are simply the wrong shape for seven days.

Open at page 10

The Register

p. 11

The stays we would book ourselves for this edition, and the one line that explains why each is here.

Seven days is not a small amount of time in Ireland. It is exactly enough, provided you spend it in four places instead of nine. Book the rooms first, leave the last day empty, and let the weather do the rest.

The printed edition

The full edition is set in print and ready to read.

In short

TL;DR. The Wild Atlantic Journey. A 7-day Ireland itinerary, west-leaning. First-time visitors who want one careful week, not a dozen towns.

Where to stay

Where this leads

Continue your journey: read the full itinerary, or have us build your trip around this edition.

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Cover of the bound printed edition N° 02, The Long Way Round, from The Ireland Edit. The linen-bound volume photographed as a physical book, with a documentary photograph of The Inagh Valley, Connemara, County Galway tipped into the front board.

N° 02

The Long Way Round

A 10-day Ireland itinerary, taken slowly.

Cover of the bound printed edition N° 03, Dublin, Properly, from The Ireland Edit. The linen-bound volume photographed as a physical book, with a documentary photograph of Henrietta Street, Dublin 1 tipped into the front board.

N° 03

Dublin, Properly

Three days in Dublin, the way we'd send friends.

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